On the velvet sward below us lay the form of another chapel, designed, or so it might have seemed, in ebony or jet. So black and well-defined was the shadow that it seemed more real and substantial than the fabric on which we stood. Each point and parapet of the building was reproduced in clearest silhouette, even to the outline of the hideous gargoyles, of which our own two figures where we leaned upon the parapet might have been modern imitations in a less outlandish form.
At our feet stood the brazier, its weird and slender form reprinted on the platform of the tower, wherein a few live coals, remnant of the spent beacon-fire, still showed a dull and lurid glare. In the moonlight they shone like coloured fruits piled in a basket of ribbed and frosted silver.
“It might be the tripod of the Delphic shrine,” I said, “ready prepared for some solemn incantation. Suppose we try its efficacy, Marion, by swearing fealty to our love.” And then, with only the solemn hills around us and the silence of the moonlit night, my love and I crossed hands above the glowing embers and prayed that the flame of our love might burn undimmed till the change which men call death should renew it in another and more perfect form.
“Love’s pious flame for ever burneth;
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth,”
quoted Marion, “which is true enough, though Southey was no poet; else he’d have put such a pretty idea in more poetic form.”
“I wonder how you came to love me, Marion,” I said, “especially as I am sure that Eric was my rival. And you know I’m nothing to him in looks or prospects or anything.”
“What, fishing for compliments already, are you? Though perhaps it’s true. He’s a dear old fellow and I love him almost as much as I do you. Only, you see, in another way. And perhaps for a husband one wants something to lean upon—something more manly, it may be, and less picturesque. You aren’t offended, are you, by the implied compliment? And there was the wreck, and that settled it. You didn’t give me a chance. Why, I never look at Bruno,”—this was the name of the dog, for the captain had given him to her—“without thinking how you risked your life to please my idle fancy. Though indeed it was no fancy, for I should always have been dreaming of him if that poor dog had died. And yet, perhaps—perhaps—I cannot tell. Sometimes I think I might have ended by marrying Eric, if you had stayed away.”
A footstep sounded on the platform behind us, and there, confronting us as we turned to go, stood Riverdale himself. He had heard, I felt sure, Marion’s concluding words.
CHAPTER XI
I had won my mistress, but my mind misgave me that I had lost my friend. Not from any signs of disappointment on his part, or any token that the world outside us could have recognised. Even to myself, who had known his innermost soul for years, there were times when I could cheat myself into the belief that all was well between us. But, just as there are times and seasons when Nature’s face and influence seem out of harmony with our mental and physical being, even so, and quite as surely, it was borne in upon me that his love for me was gone.